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How much have voters really change?
05 Nov 2008 05:44 pm
I'm not discounting the possibility of a major Democratic realignment, not at all. But I feel compelled to point out that many of the people excited by massive voter shifts are confusing a) serious Bush hatred during a once-in-a-generation financial crisis and b) massive black voting turnout to vote for the first black president, a definitionally unrepeatable happening with c) actual permanent demographic change in the electorate.
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Black turnout actually doesn't seem to have been that massive. The biggest single difference seems to have been a 13-point increase in Democratic share of the Hispanic vote.
There's always hype and misinformation in the aftermath (remember 2004's "values" voters? PBS is still talking about 130 million votes this time). But the old geezers like me were the big group turned off by Obama, and our time is passing, if not already gone. Obama appealed to Hispanic voters, which is the growing demographic. And while blacks may not match this year's energy, it's hard to see them falling back to their underparticipation of the past.
"I'm not discounting the possibility of a major Democratic realignment, not at all."
This sentence contradicts the rest of your post. Discount away!
The Hispanic turnout is notoriously hard to measure. The numbers last time were widely criticized.
The big switch was young voters, but they're a very fickle group. Also, upscale voters moved toward Obama. The 200K+ group doubled its share from 3% to 6% and Obama made a 17% improvement.
Megan is right on the numbers. Here's a good approximation. Imagine a committee that in 2004 voted for Bush 19 to 18. Four years later, one vote switches from Bush to Obama, and three new seats are added. One new seat is a black vote for Obama. The other two new seats are white seats and they split giving a Obama a 21-19 win. That's about the extent of the realignment.
Asher: I think one of the things that George W. Bush will be remembered for best is trying to make the Republican party inclusive of Hispanic voters, and sensible on immigration policy. He failed, but he tried, and tried hard. The preference of Republicans in the House & Senate to grandstand against immigration did the party as a whole harm, I think.
I voted for McCain entirely because I wanted to see how people would react if Obama lost.
I think you are discounting demographics. No, all the Bush people didn't die (I bet a majority of the people who did were Bush voters), but Colorado and Virginia are probably gone for republicans for good. North Carolina will be eventually. The GOP is going to have to do something different, and I don't think it can.
Its pretty amazing that after having the two most hispanic oriented Republicans either in office or running for office, that people can still believe that Republicans can win the hispanic vote any time soon. Its not immigration, it is that most hispanics are poor, and most will continue to be poor while mass immigration -- legal and illegal -- continues. The downward pressure on wages will ensure that. Poor people vote democratic. Had the Bush administration pursued truly sensible immigration reform -- i.e. strict employer enforcement, reduction of legal immigration numbers, reorienting those numbers toward skills/cultural compatibility, we might have seen a McCain win.
I strongly challenge the notion that this election was about "Bush hatred." That would be 2004. This election was about something else, something more in line with "actual permanent demographic change" though of course, at this early stage I can only go on massive anecdotal evidence. Also, I don't think a) and b) actually can add up to c) so your equivalence is not quite accurate.
I don't think immigration enforcement will work. It's like the drug war, only the goods move themselves.
As long as there is a demand for undocumented workers there will be illegal immigration. There will be a demand for undocumented workers as long as the payroll taxes and compliance costs for low wage workers give them a clear cost advantage.
A citizen cannot compete in the underground labor market. We are too taxed, tracked, and checked.
Every time you regularize undocumented workers already in the country you make room for more.
What was truly striking in last night's numbers were the results in states that Obama put the most extra effort into winning- IN, VA, and NC. Now, the populations, in both numbers and makeup, did not change much in 4 years, yet margins for the Republican candidate went from +21%, +8%, and +12% to 0%, -3%, and -1% in an election in which the net change in the national popular vote of only -8%. These states are not "lost forever" to Republicans- one can easily see this in the results of the states that Obama did not contest- SC and TN. The confluence of events that allowed this amazing overperformance are not likely to be repeated again in 4 years. In addition, Obama underperformed his national margins in OH, MO, and FL, which should comfort Republicans in the sense that these states are still winnable if their candidate can win the popular vote by even a small margin. However, when the Democrat wins the national vote total by 5-6%, he will always win OH and FL, will have a chance in VA.
Republicans need to heal their party- Bush and the Congressional leadership of the last 8 years have badly, badly damaged it, but it is not irreparable. Voter's memories are short, and Democrats are sure to overreach themselves and lose the support of those 15% of the population that are persuadable one way or another. In addition, they can never let themselves get outspent the way that happened in this election. Obama's campaign used that financial advantage brilliantly in putting those three states in play. I don't think you will ever see a financial mismatch this bad ever again.
No. Bush hatred was not 2004. Hurricane Katrina turned the tide against him and that was 2005. If Katrina had happened in 2004, we'd be discussing the challenge to the Kerry presidency.
I think you're right to caution Democrats against being too over-confident - they need only remember 2004 when Republicans thought they had a permanent majority. On the other hand, it is interesting (as others have pointed out today) that Democrats have now won the popular vote in 4 of the last 5 Presidential elections.
Mr. Obama ran to the left to beat Hillary in the primaries and then tacked right for the general election. My guess is that he will be governing as a somewhat centrist (though perhaps a little to the left of Bill Clinton after 94), and spending a lot of time trying to beat back some of the pent up demand on the left side of the Democratic party. To fail to do so is to not only anger the McCain voters, but to also anger the more moderate faction of his own voters.
To fail to do so is to not only anger the McCain voters
Wow, I'm sure everyone is shaking in their shoes to keep from annoying them.
"Bush hatred"? Seriously?
Megan, you obviously hate your job and you're just going through the motions. It's sad to watch.
Dumbya has been a TERRIBLE PRESIDENT. That's not an exaggeration. It's not even an especially controversial statement. The nation wants him gone for good reason. There's nothing irrational about that at all.
MoeLarryAndJesus--
...If that's the lullaby you want to sing yourself to sleep with at night.
"The preference of Republicans in the House & Senate to grandstand against immigration did the party as a whole harm, I think."
Agreed. I think the anti-urban thing may have also hurt. Republicans need to find away to be more pro-Hispanic, pro-Urban, and acceptable the working poor. I'm uncertain what that'll involve though.
Some people confused a lot of religious voters coming out to say "no to gay marriage" as a sign that this is a center-right country that wants to privatize Social Security, cut Medicare, and divert as much money as possible to the top percentile of U.S. income-earners.
I don't think your side can claim to have total ownership of voters and their true intentions, even when they vote for candidates other than yours.
"The preference of Republicans in the House & Senate to grandstand against immigration did the party as a whole harm, I think."
I also agree and think it was to McCain credit. I thought he was very pro imigration.
Basically what made me unenthusiastic about voting for McCain is that I think he'd do some very stupid regulating in the name of global warming. Because of that, I wasn't going to vote for him. But like I said, I was curious how people would react to an Obama defeat.